In this edition of Radical Grace we continue a discussion of Isaiah 55:6, and more importantly a discussion of the solution to an attitude of treating God's Grace as if it were a common thing.
It also looks like we're going to tackle the often hard subject of "where is God when I'm suffering".
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Episode 53: Can Christians truly abuse God's Grace?
Is there really a problem with Cheap Grace these days? Pastor Greg Leseur of Christ Lutheran Church in Cape Canaveral joins us again as we look at the idea of Cheap Grace and talk about how this might be possible for Christians… if it’s possible at all.
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I heard something that said a lot to me this week. "Those who have learned to do good will do what they've learned to do. Those who have learned to do evil will do what they've learned to do. Those who have learned to obey will obey. Those who have learned to disobey will disobey. All of them need forgiveness".
One of the most difficult things I had to learn after coming understand the Gospel and how it's important in my life was to learn that no matter how good I get at obeying God's law, I am still as much a sinner as I ever was. In fact, I read in the Bible that knowing the law actually makes the sin worse, and a lot of the time I see how much more sinful I really am just by trying to follow God's law. It took a long time for me, in fact... it's still taking a long time because I still don't feel like I get this right. Sanctification would be easy if it really were only about changing the way I act or changing the way I behave. But it's not easy at all, because it involves a problem I have in my heart. There's something broken in me that's just not responding to treatment. People around might say, "oh Matthew, your acting so much better this year than you did last year", but to me I'm only going through the motions. It was hard to learn that this is how it is for a Christian.
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Episode 50: "But first, I need to get right with God"...
I remember a while back, there was a man who lived in the apartment complex across the parking lot from me. He was once a Roman Catholic, long since "backslidden", so to speak, not a practicing Catholic at all. I tried several times to get him to come to church, to bring his family. But every time he'd say, "No. First I gotta get right with God".
Now what do you say to that? I have to admit, I didn't know what to say to him. Even though I knew enough about the Bible back then to understand what Jesus had done for me, and I could speak plainly about all of things that had happened in my life and I could give a pretty good testimony, none of that could address what his problem was. He knew well what was wrong, that he was sinful, that he needed a savior, but he couldn't get over this idea that he needed to get right with God before he could start going back to church.
Is he wrong?
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Episode 49: Faint Praise? How do I make it better?
Last night I had a dream, and in the dream I said a prayer. Now, I have to say, I can’t remember ever dreaming about praying, but leaving that aside for the time being, the prayer went like this.
“Lord forgive me because this is going to sound like I’m offering you faint praise”
This made me realize something. One of the things that has been going on in my life for a long time now is that I’m realizing, more and more, how much of my prayer and praise life just doesn’t measure up to what it should be. For instance, I could get 100 people to plan the most fantastic worship service, write the finest music, find the finest pastors to preach the most enlightening sermons and organize and practice the service for weeks on end… and in the end, it still wouldn’t be what it should be or even enough to achieve the type of praise and worship that God truly deserves.
I think, too often in our own lives, that we find ourselves in a similar situation. We feel as though we aren’t what we ought to be. We definitely don’t feel like we’re children of God, nor do we feel like we have attained any kind of sanctified life or any level of holiness. But what I’ve found is good to do is to ask this question: What does it mean to be sanctified?
In the last few week’s we’ve been setting the table, so to speak, by taking a few of the parables of Jesus and other difficult passages and interpreting them in the light of the Gospel. We’re not leaving that behind by no means, but since the question has been asked, what does it mean to be sanctified, we believe we are now in a good position to talk about one of the most daunting and most perplexing problems Christians face daily.
What does it mean to be sanctified?
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